Leveling Loki

[Rolzup]

Not, not leveling in the sense of destrying him utterly...although that has an appeal sometimes, trust me.

No, I'm playing my first game as the Balseraph, and I can't seem to get Loki to level up. He's got XP enough to hit third level already, but so far he's stuppornly refused to get that blue glow going.

Is this the way it should be? Or do I need to do something special with him?

 

[odalrick]

It is the way it should be.

That is, he can't level, much like golems or some summons.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Loki has no unitcombat, so there are no potential promotions.

 

[Ribusprissin]

So why does he have Channeling II, and can't buy second-level spells? And why do his puppets not get Mobility - he has Spell Extension?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Maybe it is is just to annoy you. That's kind of his thing.

 

[JohnCataldo]

Puppets are very special. They get what the caster has. For other non-Loki casters, give the caster Mobility and the puppet will get Mobility too (nice trick, that).

Loki is pretty much stuck the way he is from the start, though. He's quite useful, but he doesn't have a lot of growth potential.

 

[Senethro]

Lucky for the Bals they have a really nice worldspell.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Quick question (and sorry for the semi-necro)...

When I have used Loki he starts without access to some of the skills he's described as having. Is it a matter of the upgrades needing to be automatic (e.g. 3 Chaos nodes to access mutate or 3 nodes of anything to get rank 2 spells)?

This would make an interesting strategy for later in the game also... get an archmage or other caster with Life III and find a way to get Loki killed and then resurrect him with all the rank 2 spells you can muster by converting 3 mana nodes to whatever you like. Waterwalk, Blinding Light, Summon Spectre, etc. You could be a real jerk and go around dispeling opponent mana nodes with metamagic II as well...

Alternatively, does he have Channeling II in order to give his puppets the ability to automatically know spells that you have 3 nodes of? No water walking on Loki, but pretty much everything else through proxy?

 

[odalrick]

Loki is pretty much completely static. He has no UnitCombat and so can get no promotions. Only Arcane units get bonus promotions from mana.

Maybe puppets could gain bonus mana promotions, but since they don't start with Channeling they won't. They get Channeling and other promotions from their creator after bonus mana is doled out.

Mutation was intentionally removed from Loki, probably mostly because it made Freaks obsolete.

 

[JohnCataldo]

Just to confirm, Loki his own puppets never change. What he has at the start is all he can get. And Puppets only get what their creator can give 'em -- conceptually, they very much are a stand-in for their creator.

Balseraph is actually kind of weak early in the game, even though they can build Loki right away. They have massive late game potential, and are the only ones who can realistically abuse the powerful Domination spell.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

What is the combat category of the puppet? If he inherits Loki's Channeling II shouldn't he get access to the level 2 spells if you have 3 sources of a certain kind? Either way no worries, he's a pretty nifty guy to have at the start and the ability to ninja cities at whim at the beginning of the game is hilarious (and uber powerful) imo.

 

[JohnCataldo]

What is the combat category of the puppet? If he inherits Loki's Channeling II shouldn't he get access to the level 2 spells if you have 3 sources of a certain kind? Either way no worries, he's a pretty nifty guy to have at the start and the ability to ninja cities at whim at the beginning of the game is hilarious (and uber powerful) imo.

You'd be right except that their are special rules just for puppets.

As odalrick says, the order that things technically happen matters, but the crux of it is that it's intentional design as far as we know, not a bug. Puppets just don't get bonus spells from mana sources because they are poor copies of their maker, not individuals on their own.

I'm not sure what you mean by combat category, unless you mean race, in which case it's a Puppet. =)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I guess puppets don't have a unit_combat , to keep them from gaining xp and buying promotions.

 

[Worm4life]

Be cool if you could have Loki's city spells cast automatically every turn instead of having to manually do it.

So am I missing something, or can his culture sucking spell only be cast on someone you have open borders with (or an empty city)? Who would be dumb enough to grant open borders to them?

(Same goes to someone with Council of Esus. Manual says it's kept secret from others, but I've seen computer players with the icon.

 

[Outlandish]

Loki can explore rival territory and culture suck away with relative impunity.

 

[JFSebastian]

Be cool if you could have Loki's city spells cast automatically every turn instead of having to manually do it.

That would be awesome.

So am I missing something, or can his culture sucking spell only be cast on someone you have open borders with (or an empty city)? Who would be dumb enough to grant open borders to them?

As was said above, he can explore rival territory. The only way to keep him out of your cities is to be at war or to station hidden nationality troops. On the other hand, him being in a city is the only way to kill him, if I'm not mistaken.

(Same goes to someone with Council of Esus. Manual says it's kept secret from others, but I've seen computer players with the icon.

If you are Esus yourself, you can see which cities/civs are Esus. Also there are a few places where the anonymity breaks, such as the religion switching announcements and diplomatic interface.

 

[JohnCataldo]

Be cool if you could have Loki's city spells cast automatically every turn instead of having to manually do it.

While I think it would be fine if he just had an effect if in a city at the end of the turn, or a way to "autocast", there are tricks you can do with it as it is that would break.

For instance, Loki starts in City A, where he's cast Inspiration. If he's fast enough to get to City B and back to A, he can cast Inspiration in B. That will let both cities have Inspiration every turn from just one Loki. (Throw in Puppets and he can do more...)

As was said above, he can explore rival territory. The only way to keep him out of your cities is to be at war or to station hidden nationality troops. On the other hand, him being in a city is the only way to kill him, if I'm not mistaken.

FWIW, Loki can also die during First Strikes in combat now, which makes him a lot more vulnerable. If he's healthy he almost never dies from that, but if he's been attacked once and is on low health he needs to run away if anyone might attack him with first strikes.

 

[Worm4life]

So is the manual out of date? It says he can die if you surround him, but I did this one game and he just retreated TWO spaces to outside my encirclement.

 

[JohnCataldo]

So is the manual out of date? It says he can die if you surround him, but I did this one game and he just retreated TWO spaces to outside my encirclement.

You mean he walked through a square that had one of your units in it? That's the only place he should be able to go if he's completely surrounded. If so, sounds like it was probably some weird bug that shoved him through you.

Otherwise, Loki can certainly move two squares a turn, or diagonally...?

 

[Emptiness]

I don't think he is limited in where he can retreat. I know he can cross bodies of water, and I don't think blocking him in with units will stop him either.